


The Viking and the Sprite

by alec



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: (Inanimate I mean), Alternate Universe - Inanimate Objects, Christmas Decorations, HiJack Secret Santa, M/M, Secret Santa 2017, or are they?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 11:49:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13213128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alec/pseuds/alec
Summary: This year, as with every year, the viking hung from the tree, looking down over the family that he had watched grow with love and with pride. And this year, as with every year, he waited for the sprite to be unwrapped and to steal his world away and to complete him.





	The Viking and the Sprite

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Secret Santa, [goddess-of-fluff](http://goddess-of-fluff.tumblr.com/)! It's after Christmas but still totally within the realm of when we can be posting these. I didn't mean to run it so close though. The prompt was something "cute and domestic" and I went through a couple of ideas for how to write that before landing on this. I hope you enjoy, and I hope you had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!
> 
> Same goes for everybody else reading this as well! Here's to 2018!

Light flooded into the viking’s view. It was dim at first, barely any change from the darkness of the sleep that he had been in. It had been enough to stir him but beyond that, nothing.

The sounds of paper rustling around him grew louder as the minutes wore on. He could feel movement in all directions. Some of it was careful and delicate; some of it was rushed and clumsy, whispering of inevitable accidents to come and of inexperience in youth. Gradually, voices began to break through the white noise. Instructions from that all-too-familiar voice along with admonitions where appropriate. That was what woke the viking up completely, long before he felt the short and stubby fingers wrap around him and lift him into the light.

As the paper peeled away from him, the first thing the viking felt was a mixed tingling of awe and pride. _She had grown so big. So beautiful. So wonderful._ The viking could remember her as a little girl, stumbling and falling around in front of him wearing a diaper, drool everywhere. The viking had memories of her unwrapping her first toy set. Of her falling asleep in front of the fire. Of her watching Christmas television specials. Bringing over her first boyfriend for the holiday, then a different boy the following year. Soon enough, she was no longer home for the full holidays, and then there were years where the viking never saw her. And then, one year, the viking awoke to a whole new house, a whole new experience and new walls and new stairs, a brand new window to look at the snow through. A house with pictures of the girl and a boy, smiling and happy, with friends. A few years later, and there was a new girl alongside her as she unwrapped the viking from his tissue paper. She had grown so tall, so pretty, every bit the perfect features of her mother and father. She was at once both entirely new and entirely familiar, and the viking felt so much pride having watched her grow her entire life into the woman she was today.

The woman’s daughter was holding the viking, lifting him up as high as she could to show her mother her discovery. The woman smiled approvingly. _My, how the daughter had grown so large this past year!_ Her brother—the newest face the viking had learned, still only a few years new—reached up with both hands, begging for his sister to show him what she had found. She handed the viking down to him, and the viking beamed up at the boy, so excited and happy to see the sheer joy in his eyes as he looked over the viking.

Christmas was the viking’s favourite time of the year. It was filled with wonder, a time when everything was possible. When Santa would steal away into the homes of every child, leaving them with gifts and presents and rewarding them for all the good that they had put out into the world that year. When fairies would dance in stories, and when reindeer could fly across the sky of their own accord and light the way through the darkness. When angels would sing and tell of the coming of joy, of a new day, of the promise of love and redemption and hope. When a family’s house would transform around them, bringing in a special air and making the house feel smaller, cozier, evoking a sense of closeness among the family and bringing out a spirit that brought them all together. Christmas was the one time of the year that the viking was awake for, the one time of the year that he was able to be with the family, but he knew that it was special and irreplaceable, and he was honoured to be allowed to be a part of that wonder.

“Choose a place on the tree for him to go now, dear,” the woman told her daughter. The viking was lifted from the son’s hands, rounding to face the Christmas tree.

And it was beautiful. It was alight with colours, the bright lights of greens and blues, reds and purples and oranges peaking out from between the branches. Already, dozens of bulbs hung from the limbs, and the air was filled with the rich scents of the pine needles that littered the carpet around the base. As the daughter walked the viking closer to the tree, he felt a swelling of happiness and love inside of him, nearing his home for the next month. Each step forward was a labour of love from the whole family to him and to each other.

The viking was hung on a branch near the middle of the tree, the highest that the daughter could reach. The branch sagged with his added weight, but he held tight to it, looking down from his perch for the year as he surveyed the room in front of him. There would be more transformation to come—the tree was always first—but the closeness of his family, even without the woman’s husband home from his work yet, was a sign of the special change that Christmas brought about.

He hung there, delighted and proud of the woman that the small girl from long ago had become, and the new family that had grown from the old family. _His_ family.

“Mommy, mommy! Look what I found!” The daughter held up a figure, partially obscured by her small hands. But there was no mistaking that shade of blue that peeked out from between her fingers. Or the woman’s cooing and her smile as she saw him.

It was the winter sprite, the small, barefoot boy, dressed in blues and browns with white hair. The embodiment of snow and winter that the woman and the viking both loved in their own ways. Their favourite ornament. The woman beamed as the son begged to see what his mother had been so enamoured with. The girl showed her brother, never letting the sprite out of her hand in order to ensure its safety.

“When you hang this ornament, you always have to put it next to the viking,” she told her brother matter-of-factly. There was determination in her voice as she reached up, finding a branch close to the viking’s to hang the sprite on.

“Why?” her brother asked in response.

“Because you just hafta. These two are in _love_ and no matter where you hang them on the tree, they’ll always wind up next to each other. Just like how mommy and daddy always stand next to each other.”

The sprite’s blues and whites were bold against the backdrop of the Christmas tree. They were colours unique to him that drew in your attention and made him instantly recognisable no matter where he was. The viking had never been able to take his gaze away from the sprite. How many decades now had it been since the two first met, when the sprite with his heavy hues and elegant flourish had first hung alight from the tree? In that instant, the viking had eyes for nothing else. The sprite had been near the top of the tree that first year, and the viking swore that he had been more gorgeous and more radiant than the angel that sat atop the tree itself.

Christmas was a time of exploration and guardianship and love. Late at night when the family was asleep and even the dog had laid down to slumber, the viking and the sprite would secret away and watch over the children, making sure that no ill thoughts disturbed their dreams. Small wonders, such as candy that found its way into the shoes of children and parents alike, would follow in their wake. They would return to the tree, to their places as best they could remember, every morning before the light of the sun shone through and before the first early riser would awaken. Together, as the other ornaments hung from their places or moved about on their own, the viking and the sprite worked to bring about their blessings, however small, and weave them over the family. Always together. They were a set that nobody but themselves had made.

The son made a cooing noise as he looked up at the viking and the sprite. His sister, meanwhile, turned back to the open box of ornaments to continue pulling them out and unwrapping them. The tree was still sparse; there were dozen upon dozens of ornaments still to be unwrapped, still to be hung upon the tree. From where she sat on the floor, the woman watched her daughter as she herself untangled the last of the Christmas tree lights from their plastic binding.

The grandfather clock in the corner of the room, something that had followed the woman when the house had changed many years ago now, chimed twice before the daughter and the son collapsed on the floor. They were surrounded by a mess of boxes and tissue paper wrapping that had once decorated the ornaments hanging on the tree. Empty brown boxes lay discarded around them. Outside the window, the sun had long ago set and the streetlamps and Christmas lights hanging on the house outside were meagre substitutes.

“Jackie, Ethan, come on. Let’s head to bed now,” the woman said, standing up and stepping over the mess that she would clean up in the morning. Dinner had come an hour ago in the form of innumerable chicken nuggets fresh from the oven.

The daughter made a noise of protest, but it was hollow. The son had already fallen asleep, aided into the dreamworld by the warm food in his stomach. The woman shook his shoulder lightly, finally rousing him enough that she could direct him towards the staircase.

The woman stood back, surveying the damage around her. The tree was decorated with lights and ornaments fit for a palace; the room was decorated in packing supplies fit for a mailroom. Each year was the same routine, the same pattern. The tree was always decorated with the most care, the most attention. Tomorrow would follow the rest of the house.

She smiled as she looked at the tree before looking around at the home she had made. She nodded to herself, and the viking could recognise so much of her mother and her father in the unique curve of her smile. He knew that they would be so proud of her if they could see her now.

The woman flicked off the lights to the living room, walking to the doorway, when she slowed to a halt. Her head tilted slightly as though something had crossed her mind. Something confusing, a slight memory that hadn’t quite taken shape yet. The woman turned back towards the Christmas tree, walking to it slowly and bending down just a bit to look at the viking and the sprite where they hung.

“I...” she began, but closed her mouth for a moment. “I feel as though I remember them always being next to each other when I was a kid as well.” There was doubt in her voice, as though she didn’t trust her memory completely. She stared at the two ornaments for a moment, but no glimmer of recognition crossed across her face. At length she stood up and, with a final look back at the tree, followed her children up the staircase.

The house fell into a comfortable stillness.

There were still many days, many nights of adventure and magic and wonder before Santa would arrive. Before he would appear from the chimney and the stockings hung above the fireplace would be filled. Before the cookies left out for him would be eaten and the milk drained and the sound of hooves atop the house would lightly sound his departure to other places. There was still time for the viking and the sprite to be together and spend this year, as they spent every year, side by side.

Rotating on the golden thread that held him on the tree, the sprite turned towards the viking and, illuminated by the multicoloured lights strung through the tree, winked at him.


End file.
